


Walking Red

by VastDerp



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Dress Up, M/M, Smashpusher Eve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-15
Updated: 2012-02-15
Packaged: 2017-10-31 05:33:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/340481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VastDerp/pseuds/VastDerp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gamzee has one little wish for Smashed Bloodpusher Eve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Walking Red

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mercurialMalcontent](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercurialMalcontent/gifts).



You like to think that, as a born leader and master of the quadrants, you've got the grace and poise to endure any number of humiliations in the name of romance, but you're currently naked. That is why, when Gamzee comes at you with a mouthful of safety pins, a bag of fabric and two stupid shiny eyes all gleaming with enthusiasm, you have to fight the absconding urge. 

But you _promised_.

It's Smashed Bloodpusher Eve and you, you stupid _fuck_ , told your pet demented clown he could have one wish to celebrate. You thought he'd ask for a bag of special stardust and you could just grind up some window glass or something and not have to think about it too hard, but _no_. He had to go and get creative.

"Ain't no worry, Karbro," Gamzee says, and gives you a friendly clap on one bare shoulder that just about knocks you through the wall. You're no douchebag yellowblood at constant risk of snapping at the waist in a soft breeze, but Gamzee's made of truck and holy shit that's going to leave a mark. Equius at least has the decency to ask before he touches people.

"There _is_ worry." You rub your shoulder. "There is _so much worry_ , Gamzee, you fucking sadist."

This earns you a casual head-pet. Your hair fights back, but nothing can stand against the might of his freaky huge hands.  "Shit, man, how'd I go about putting a motherfucker out of his misery with these little bitty old stickpins? See me sneakin' around with that bitchin' Zillyhoo, my sweetest motherfucker, and then you can get your pants-pissin' on in earnest. Now shoosh and let's make this shit happen." He drops the bag on the floor and pulls out something frothy and hideously red that goes on for miles.

You have no idea why Gamzee wanted to make you a fucking dress for Smashpusher Eve, but you have been willing to go along with it just to make him happy, until you see the color. 

You squawk in protest, but it's too late. He shakes open the skirt over your head like a parachute and it settles down around you before you can wrestle free. Not like you could have run anywhere grub-naked anyway.

Fine. Death with dignity, then. You stand perfectly still and let him wrap you up in an eternity of slippery candy-red fabric that still smells like the inside of Kanaya's hive. You can tell which parts your traitorous ex-buddy sewed in creating this nightmare, because those are the sections that don't have knots and tangles of abused thread clogging up the stitches. Gamzee's side of the job is so obvious you get a dull and terrible stab of pity in your gut just looking at this thing. There's a piece that isn't even _attached_. 

"Ran out of time," he apologizes, when he sees you looking. "I wanted to do it all as much as I could so's it would be my present, but I kept pokin' my ass with the needles and finally it was too late. The pins will do okay, best friend. Just for wearin' tonight."

"Damn right it's just for tonight."

"Unless you want to be wearing it more often."

"Oh god."

"You don't want to get your swishy skirts on?"

"No. Well, maybe. Fuck, I don't know."

He watches you sputter with a total lack of reaction, which pisses you off. Here you are strangling on pity for him and he's off in Gamzee-land where things like the hemospectrum don't actually factor in. All your resolve to be nice, just tonight, just for him, goes out the fenestrated wall with a spectacular mental crash.

"It just had to be red, didn't it? You couldn't have stuck with a color that won't get me culled." He's pinning something at the waist while you lash out, working so delicately with those skull-crushing hands of his, and you refuse to look down at him as you speak, refuse to see him so in love with an ugly red dress and the ugly fucking nubby-horned mutant wearing it.

The thing is so heavy. How could anyone fight in something like this? Gamzee rises up, slowly, until his chin is level with your forehead, and takes you by the shoulders. He talks around the pins in his mouth in a slurred growl, the edge in his voice still completely distinct. He bends down a little and wraps his arms around you, pulls your head into his shoulder. His arms are like iron bands. That is definitely the only reason you go limp and just let him squeeze you.

"Nobody's culling nobody 'less I say so." His breath tickles the side of your neck and whuffles through the hair there, and your skin prickles all over at the feel of those words vibrating into your skin. He isn't talking big, and that's a little bit scary. You worry about him trying to kick the world's ass for you because he still kind of thinks he's one or the other of the Messiahs every now and then. "I got the most wicked of bad ends reserved _special_ for any fuck as wants to try and steal my miracles."

"Ugh. If I never hear that word again, it'll be too soon." 

Gamzee releases you from his embrace and loops the loose piece around your neck, pinning it down, careful to never poke you. He knows how you are with people seeing your blood, even him. You're still nervous as hell, so you close your eyes and refuse to open them. You forget to breathe a few times, too.

After a few minutes he finishes fiddling with the pins and you relax. You hear a zip and the cloth around your belly and chest goes snug.  "Can't be pretending I don't notice and recognize that shit, Karkat Vantas. Ain't what I was made to be like."

The sound of your full name coming out of his mouth chokes you up for a moment, and you forget to breathe all over again.

"Check it out, bro, you're done." 

You look down, just to get it over with. And it's terrible. All you see is red, red, red. The skirt is a ruffled crimson bell with some kind of lacy shit at the bottom. It hangs down from the waist to the floor, covering your grimy bare feet. He didn't bring any shoes to go with the dress, thank fuck.

The shirt part (bodice? Corset? Fuck, whatever, the part that covers up your pasty gray thorax) is tight and flush against your skin, moving as you breathe. It goes up to just under your armpits and the bit that wasn't attached is kind of a wispy scarfy thing that covers you from the neck down, draping over your bare shoulders in a red waterfall and casting your skin in dim pink.  It feels like it was sewn around you. Maybe that's why Kanaya did all that measuring, but fuck if you can figure out how Gamzee's stitching didn't mangle it.

Underneath the dress, your legs are shaking. There's something to be glad about. He can't see it.

This dress is your worst fucking nightmare. It's like he's turned you inside out. And he's _looking_. You realize far, far too late that this was the point all along. No amount of turning off the lights will save you now. It's all on display, just for him.

_Oh god. Oh god. Oh god I'm going to get culled on Smashpusher Eve. Oh god._

"What do you think?" he asks. "Ain't it beautiful?"

"Oh yeah," you snort. "Fucking magic all up in this bitch." You regret it the minute his words leave your mouth, tainted by your bitterness. Too late now.

Gamzee's brow creases. You've hurt his feelings again, you _fuck_. And there's that pity again, right on target, courtesy of past Karkat, the douche in the mutant-red ballgown. 

You never mean to be this way with  _him_. Why do you always have to default to douchebag? You make a lame attempt to save the situation.

"I mean, it's pretty, okay? It's a nice dress. And you spent all that time on it just for me, and that's... you know... it's..."

"Yeah?"

"Why did it have to be  _red?"_ Your voice cracks on that last word. Like you know you should be whispering it.

"Best friend, you still ain't seeing the _specific_  miracles in play here." His eyes are killing you. Without the toxic glaze, his feelings show right through, all the time, without any armor at all. He thinks the world is his _friend_. You're still not really sure what to do about that. Maybe just grip your sickles as tight as you can and wait for something to come along and try to take him away from you. You're the freak, but he's  _weird_.

"You just ain't perceiving the fucking magic happening right now."

"Getting culled is magic now? Shit, someone should go tell Eridan."

"Ain't any of that your blood's fault.  All that color does is be running through you and keeping shit alive and bein' sacred as fuck."

"Oh my fucking god, Gamzee, don't even try to tell me--"

"Motherfucker, don't be jumping on a brother when he's getting his rhapsody on. I ain't even finished." He puts his hands on your face, slips them down over your chest to right over where your pulse is going crazy with anger and excitement. He tugs the bodice around, adjusting it just a little bit, and you feel fabric tighten around your waist and slip into a more comfortable fit. He looks you right in the eye.

"Ain't nothing shameful pounding in your veins, my brother."

"Preach on, asshole. I can't wait to hear what a member of the noble class has to say about my awesome exotic liquid death sentence."

"You're all over as special as fuck, and you ain't even knowing when it's spelled out in the brightest fuckin' red like a sign from the prophets, all because some dead motherfuckers made it a curse."

"Dead motherfuckers with _very large weapons."_

"No matter, bro. Highbloods want to talk about the wicked secret colors, they can just ask me. I'll use theirs to paint the truth for any bitchass racists what need the picture drawn out for them to see how the shit needs to be.  _I will unleash the motherfucking whirlwind."_

"Your incredily romantic promises of mass murder notwithstanding, I'm still not going outside dressed like this."

"Wasn't even thinking to make you do that shit," Gamzee shrugs. "I got a greedy beat to my bloodpusher says over and over again that it ain't nobody else's magic but yours and mine."

"Yeah, well," You growl. "If it weren't red, it'd be really..." you swallow. "Uh."

"Yeah?"

"It'd be beautiful, okay? You did a beautiful job, and it's beautiful. And you're beautiful. And I'm shutting the fuck up now, because I am in fact retarded for you."

"Knew that already, bro." Gamzee chuckles and offers you a hand. "Come dance with a motherfucker."

"what, in my computer block? Barefoot? Fucking _swoon."_

"Shit's a ballroom," Gamzee informs you. "Bitchtits chandeliers and fuckers in suits playing our song." 

"You didn't dress up." In fact, you're not entirely sure he changed his clothes from yesterday.

"Ain't needing to. It ain't my special day to be beautiful and red."

You shrug. "Fine. I'm ugly and I can't dance for shit, but fine."

"I ain't even caring about that second part, and you're still not getting the miracle, my finest bro."

"Spell it out for the slow kids, Gamzee. Jesus."

"Dance with a motherfucker first."

You humor him, swaying together slow and clumsy to the sound of no music playing, and he wraps his massive arms around you again, so delicate and careful, and buries his nose in the hair behind your right horn, breathing in little animal sniffs like he's smelling you. Which is probably exactly what he's doing. The wages of being raised by a goat-fish-thing, not that you have any moral superiority on the matter considering you used to flap your hands like claws when you were really pissed off.

"Why _red?"_ You ask again, and it's a different question this time. Being wrapped up in his arms with the skirt swaying all along your bare legs and tickling you in places your jeans never did. "What's so special about red? You aren't down on your knees licking Kanaya's feet for being jade, and that's rare as hell. Or Feferi for being whatever the fuck you call that pink shit. Terezi's into my blood because she can see it the best, and also is utterly grubfuck insane. You're not blind and you're mostly normal. So why _red?"_

"The stars, bro."

"Uh-huh."

"They all made you red so's I'd know when I saw you. They were being all like, _Gamzee, you're a dumbass motherfucker and you ain't done nothing right since you hatched, but we're cool and all eternal and have pity everlasting and shit, so we're gonna make that motherfucker as red as red gets so you know what quadrant to put his beautiful ass in when you find him. Try not to be fucking it up too bad._  So I asked my fine glowing sister to pick the reddest red she could find and help me wrap you up in it so you could see too."

"Oh." You sound like an idiot.

"That's the miracle."

"Uh." You are an idiot.

"Out there's not in here. I see how the colors should be. It's how I know I'm yours, you silly motherfucker. And you go around and call yourself ugly all the time like that don't make me pity you even harder. You are _walking red_ , bro. I wish I could taste it like blind Chica. I already hear it when you get to screamin' and telling a brother to get his self-preservation on."

"Uh-huh." You are the biggest idiot in Alternia.

"You are beautiful and I will kill any motherfucker you want me to kill, bro. That's all I got to say."  

You hear your skirt rustle when he pulls you into him and puts his hands around your satin-smooth waist. You think,  _okay, yeah, that's nice, that is really just completely fucking_ nice _._

"Mmmhuzz." You are the biggest idiot in the entire universe, and you don't care.

"So do I get to kiss my finest matesprit now, or do I gotta keep talking?"

"Kiss? Yes. Kiss now. Good." 

 _"Wicked."_  He grins, and closes the distance between your lips.


End file.
